Kari ran for City Council in 2018 in a field of 4, competing for 2 seats on Council. Only she didn’t just run against her opponents. She ran against a $200,000-plus smear campaign orchestrated by Benicia Valero Refinery and its friends in organized labor.
The three major candidates’ campaigns spent less than $30,000 each, while Valero saturated our phone lines, mailboxes, newspapers and social media with misinformation and ugly photos.
All four candidates came out in opposition to Valero’s big-money dirty tactics.
Shortly after the election, almost exactly a year ago, the Benicia City Council decided – unanimously – to do something about dirty campaigns like the 2018 election. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on January 14, 2019:
“Valero spent $200,000 in last year’s Benicia city council election to help elect two candidates who were less critical of the company than others. That’s created tension between the oil refiner and the city, leading people to question how much influence Valero should have in local politics. On Tuesday Benicia will discuss the possibility of new campaign finance laws that could limit corporate influence in its small town.”
The Council directed its Open Government Commission (OGC) to consider updates and amendments to the City’s three campaign ordinances. The OGC appointed a subcommittee which took nearly a year to review a zillion suggestions gathered from you and me – and from Valero (!) and other local businesses and organizations.
This Tuesday, the Benicia City Council will discuss the report and recommendations of the Open Government Commission. The City Attorney recommended against some of the recommendations, perhaps with good reason: some are covered by California law, and some could be challenged in court as indefensible. Others that are not supported should be addressed by Council.
But note that the heart of the OGC recommendations are recommended by City staff, including the City Attorney, for passage. [AGENDA & Staff Reports here]
Council should not forget its unanimous desire for reform following the ugly campaign of 2018. COUNCIL SHOULD VOTE YES on Tuesday, January 7.
Here is filmmaker Constance Beutel’s video of the City of Benicia’s Air Monitoring Workshop with representatives from Benicia Fire Department, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Valero and the newly forming non profit, Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program.
The Valero refinery in Benicia. (Craig Miller/KQED)
Solano County inspectors documented a long list of shortcomings and inadequate procedures at Valero’s Benicia oil refinery that contributed to a major pollution release from the facility earlier this year, newly released county documents show.
The county’s Department of Resource Management documented violations of eight separate state regulations. The infractions included failure to fix important sensors in a refinery furnace unit, infrequent inspections of key equipment, and failure to have an operating plan in place to deal with unexpected refinery conditions.
Solano’s probe relied in part on Valero’s root cause analysis of the shutdown, which found that one of the worst refinery incidents in the Bay Area in years was caused by a mistake made months earlier.
Both reports focused on tubes in the refinery’s furnace that heat up crude oil before it’s routed to other parts of the facility for processing. County and refinery officials say those furnace tubes were damaged during maintenance work last November, which caused the devices to fail and contributed to the plant’s malfunctions in March.
The Valero complex ended up belching out a massive amount of black sooty smoke, which led to health concerns for people living nearby.
The refinery’s subsequent closure contributed to a statewide spike in gasoline prices and prompted investigations by several government agencies, renewing attention on the refinery two years after a power outage caused a major release of toxic sulfur dioxide in the area.
Valero spokeswoman Lillian Riojas declined to comment directly on the company’s violations. Instead, she pointed to the company’s May filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in which it reported it’s facing more than $342,000 in fines in connection with the incident. The company told the SEC it expects to face $242,840 in proposed penalties from Solano County and $100,000 from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
Valero’s root cause analysis, completed in July, examines a series of problems that led to the refinery malfunctions.
Company inspections during the refinery shutdown found that furnace tubes were bulging and leaking. Valero says when the facility was restarting a unit last November, a safety valve improperly “lifted,” allowing crude oil to bypass one of the refinery’s furnaces.
Valero says “it was not appreciated at the time” that allowing the bypass “exposed the furnace tubes to elevated temperatures.” Extreme heat gradually deformed the tubes and allowed a solid substance called petroleum coke to form inside. Valero’s analysis concedes that the deteriorating conditions were “not timely identified and mitigated, leading to the tubes’ subsequent failure” and the March refinery malfunctions.
Solano County’s investigation reported that carbon monoxide and oxygen sensors in the refinery furnace were not operational for at least three years.
“Proper functioning sensors would have provided an indication that the furnace was malfunctioning to Valero staff, allowing them to act sooner to correct the condition and prevent additional release,” said Terry Schmidtbauer, the county’s assistant director of resource management, in an email.
“The issue with the furnace upset the system,” Schmidtbauer said.
Those system issues became more evident in early March as two other refinery components experienced problems. One was a fluid coker, which heats up and “cracks” the thickest components of crude oil processed at the refinery. Another, a flue gas scrubber, removes fine particles before gases are released from the facility’s smokestacks.
Malfunctions with those devices led to an increase in carbon monoxide levels, according to Valero, To reduce those levels, refinery crews ended up increasing the temperature on the furnace tubes, thus accelerating their deterioration.
There was little liquid in the tubes, which puts them at risk of damage, according to Professor Eric Smith of Tulane University’s Energy Institute, who specializes in refinery operations.
“One result is thermal degradation of the metal tube,” said Smith, who reviewed company and county findings. “Another effect is that the liquid that does make it through the tube is converted into petroleum coke.”
That dynamic led to the release of sooty smoke and resulted in elevated levels of particulate matter and a health advisory.
County inspectors discovered several problems with lines that carry petroleum coke. On the day the refinery was shut down, one was leaking. Valero staff told Solano officials in April another line had failed five times in the last three years.
The county’s Department of Resource Management has ordered Valero to make a series of changes, some of which it has already completed. They include orders to reduce petroleum coke releases, new procedures for preventing the overheating of furnace tubes and increased training.
Solano County’s Schmidtbauer said the department was still assessing what penalties it will levy against the refinery.
Local air regulators issued 12 notices of violation against Valero. Ralph Borrmann, a spokesman for the air district, said the agency’s probe is not yet complete.
An investigation by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, Cal/OSHA, is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks, according to agency spokesman Frank Polizzi.
California Oil Industry Sounds Alarm Over Utilities’ Power Shutoff Plans
By Ted Goldberg, Aug 20, 2019
A refinery in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson burns off flammable gases after a September 2005 power outage blacked out much of the L.A. area. (David McNew/Getty Images)
The industry group representing oil companies in California says if the state’s utilities shut off power to refineries during periods of high fire danger, the facilities could be knocked offline, resulting in major pollution releases and increased gasoline prices.
The Western States Petroleum Association asked California regulators in early May for exemptions from power shutoff plans that the state and electrical utilities have adopted to reduce the chances of power lines starting fires during extremely windy and hot conditions.
The industry group warned that an outage as short as a minute could result in refineries going off line for up to three weeks, triggering a series of ugly consequences.
“An uncontrolled shutdown of a refinery from a de-energization action would result in immediate emergency load shedding, flaring and a heightened risk of a catastrophic event,” the association wrote in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission.
The filing has prompted an angry reaction from a leading environmental group, which says it fears the oil companies will use a power shutdown as a justification for harmful emissions.
“It’s outrageous that action to protect against wildfire risk might result in dangerous pollution,” said Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Refineries shouldn’t be allowed to use this as an excuse to contaminate the air we breathe.”
When asked recently about the petroleum association’s concerns, a PG&E representative said the utility would work to restore power faster for refineries after the shutoffs.
“We are continually working to analyze our systems, refine our procedures and further assess how we can minimize the impacts of a public safety power shutoff. This includes working towards the ability to be able to prioritize the re-energization of critical infrastructure like oil refineries,” said Jeff Smith, a PG&E spokesman.
Two weeks after the association’s filing, the commission approved PG&E’s shutoff plans. Oil companies did not get the break they wanted.
But the association’s concerns have not faded. The head of the industry group continues to call on the state’s utilities to keep the power flowing to refineries even during periods of high fire danger.
“Unplanned shutdowns imposed by a utility can result in health, safety and environmental impacts,” Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the group’s president, said in a statement.
“If a utility’s actions disrupt the fuel supply chain, this could significantly impact affordable fuel costs for businesses and consumers in California,” Reheis-Boyd said. “Utilities need to make sure that they are investing adequate resources to protect critical facilities to ensure that any de-energization event is used as an absolute last resort and does not cause more harm to Californians.”
PG&E Shutoff Plan Scrutinized
The industry’s concerns were highlighted last week when state lawmakers scrutinized PG&E’s shutoff plans. State Sen. Scott Wiener. D-San Francisco, mentioned the refineries while questioning a PG&E executive.
“We saw the oil industry, and I’m not usually aligned with the oil industry, but their letter was very compelling. That’s pretty problematic for that to happen,” Wiener said during a state Senate subcommittee hearing last Wednesday.
PG&E says it recently met with the industry to discuss its concerns, but it has not signaled an intention to alter its shutoff plans.
Sumeet Singh, the PG&E vice president overseeing the company’s wildfire safety program, told the panel that the transmission system serving refineries is built with redundancy in mind.
“When you look at our transmission system, by nature, especially the 100-kilovolt and above … there’s quite a lot of reliability that’s built into it,” Singh said. That means “if you lose a line, you have another” line as a backup, he added.
Singh also suggested that the oil industries can take PG&E to court “if they fundamentally believe that the decision that we made was inaccurate, inappropriate, targeted in some way, led to some harm.”
2017 Power Outage at Valero Refinery
An oil company lawsuit against the utility would not be unprecedented. A May 2017 power failure at Valero’s Benicia plant triggered a major release of toxic sulfur dioxide and prompted emergency shelter-in-place orders.
The CPUC blamed PG&E for the outage, but declined to punish the company. Valero filed a lawsuit against the utility, seeking more than $75 million in damages. That lawsuit is currently on hold pending the outcome of PG&E’s bankruptcy proceedings.
The industry’s filing with the commission says the 2017 Valero outage proves the dangers an electricity failure poses to a refinery.
Currently, the Valero refinery is not in an area designated by PG&E as one at high risk for a public safety power shutoff. Solano County inspectors and Benicia fire officials note that the refinery gets power from two separate lines.
Terry Schmidtbauer, Solano County’s assistant director of resource management, which oversees the Benicia facility, says the likelihood of Valero losing power from a pre-emptive shutoff is low.
“That being said, we are all aware of the past events where Valero did lose all power and had to shut down rather quickly. Such an event is not impossible, even if highly unlikely,” Schmidtbauer said.
Schmidtbauer said after the 2017 outage, county inspectors told Valero to set up a procedure by which it would rely more on fuel gas and steam to generate electricity at the plant to run the refinery if it were to lose power from PG&E.
A Valero spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
Contra Costa County’s refineries — the Chevron, Shell, Phillips 66 and Marathon plants — are expected to rely more on their cogeneration facilities and reduce refining in cases of power shutoffs, according to Randy Sawyer, the county’s chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer.
“I am expecting that they will cut back on their operations so they can continue to operate somewhat on their own,” Sawyer said.
Shell’s Martinez refinery has emergency backup systems, but they are not enough to power the entire plant, according to Shell spokeswoman Ann Notarangelo.
“We do not have enough onsite generation to sustain plant operations in the event of a complete loss of power from PG&E,” Notarangelo said.
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